How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887

George W. (George Wilbur) Peck

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• Publié par: inki
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 33
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion, by George W. Peck This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 Author: George W. Peck Release Date: May 16, 2008 [EBook #25492] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK *** Produced by David Widger titlepage (106K) HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK PUT DOWN THE REBELLION or, THE FUNNY EXPERIENCES OF A RAW RECRUIT.By George W. Peck 1887Contents CHAPTER I. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XXVII.List of Illustrations Mounting a Horse from the Top of A Rail Fence On Went the Two Night Riders Great Caesar's Ghost How It Did Taste Never Did Know, How I Got out of the General's Tent A Solemn Funeral Oration You Are a Darling Good Man Engineer Threw a Lump of Coal and Hit Me We Went Into the Camp That Way Just Promoted to the Proud Position of Corporal Xcuse Me, But What Kind of a Thing is That? Two Very Long Stockings, Came over the Pulpit Gave a Yell That Could Have Been Heard A Mile She Gave Him a Piece of Her Mind I Forbid You Touching That Mare Stood There for a Minute, Like A Horse StatuteCHAPTER I. The War Literature of the "Century" is very Confusing—I am Resolved to tell the True Story of the War—How and "Why I Became a Raw Recruit—My Quarters—My Horse—My First Ride. For the last year or more I have been reading the articles in the C e n t u r y magazine, written by generals and things who served on both the Union and Confederate sides, and have been struck by the number of "decisive battles" that were fought, and the great number of generals who fought them and saved the country. It seems that each general on the Union side, who fought a battle, and writes an article for the aforesaid magazine, admits that his battle was the one which did the business. On the Confederate side, the generals who write articles invariably demonstrate that they everlastingly whipped their opponents, and drove them on in disorder. To read those articles it seems strange that the Union generals who won so many decisive battles, should not have ended the war much sooner than they did, and to read the accounts of battles won by the Confederates, and the demoralization that ensued in the ranks of their opponents, it seems marvellous that the Union army was victorious. Any man who has followed these generals of both sides, in the pages of that magazine, must conclude that the war was a draw game, and that both sides were whipped. Thus far no general has lost a battle on either side, and all of them tacitly admit that the whole thing depended on them, and that other commanders were mere ciphers. This is a kind of history that is going to mix up generations yet unborn in the most hopeless manner. It has seemed to me as though the people of this country had got so mixed up about the matter that it was the duty of some private soldier to write a description of t h e decisive battle of the war, and as I was the private soldier who fought that battle on the Union side, against fearful odds, v i z: against a Confederate soldier who was braver than I was, a better horseback rider, and a better poker player, I feel it my duty to tell about it. I have already mentioned it to a few veterans, and they have advised me to write an article for the C e n t u r y, but I have felt a delicacy about entering the lists, a plain, unvarnished private soldier, against those generals. While I am something of a liar myself, and can do fairly well in my own class, I should feel that in the C e n t u r y I was entered in too fast a class of liars, and the result would be that I should not only lose my entrance fee, but be distanced. So I have decided to contribute this piece of history solely for the benefit of the readers of my own paper, as they will believe me. It was in 1864 that I joined a cavalry regiment in the department of the Gulf, a raw recruit in a veteran regiment. It may be asked why I waited so long before enlisting, and why I enlisted at all, when the war was so near over. I know that the most of the soldiers enlisted from patriotic motives, and because they wanted to help shed blood, and wind up the war. I did not. I enlisted for the bounty. I thought the war was nearly over, and that the probabilities were that the legiment I had enlisted in would, be ordered home before I could get to it. In fact the re-cruiting officer told me as much, and he said I would get my bounty, and a few months' pay, and it would be just like finding money. He said at that late day I would never see a rebel, and if I did have to join the regiment, there would be no fighting, and it would just be one continued picnic for two or three months, and there would be no more danger than to go off camping for a duck shoot. At my time of life, now that I have become gray, and bald, and my eyesight is failing, and I have become a grandfather, I do not want to open the sores of twenty-two years ago. I want a quiet life. So I would not assert that the recruiting officer deliberately lied to me, but I was the worst deceived man that ever enlisted, and if I ever meet that man, on this earth, it will go hard with him. Of course, if he is dead, that settles it, as I shall not follow any man after death, where I am in doubt as to which road he has taken, but if he is alive, and reads these lines, he can hear of something to his advantage by communicating with me. I would probably kill him. As far as the bounty was concerned, I got that all right, but it was only three-hundred dollars. Within twenty-four hours after I had been credited to the town from which I enlisted, I heard of a town that was paying as high as twelve-hundred dollars for recruits. I have met with many reverses of fortune in the course of a short, but brilliant career, have loaned money and never got it back, have been taken in by designing persons on three card monte, and have been beaten trading horses, but I never suffered much more than I did when I found that I had got to go to war for a beggerly three-hundred dollars bounty, when I could have had twelve hundred dollars by being credited to another town. I think that during two years and a half of service nothing tended more to dampen my ardor, make me despondent, and hate myself, than the loss of that nine-hundred dollars bounty. There was not an hour of the day, in all of my service, that I did not think of what might have been. It was a long time before I brought to my aid that passage of scripture, "There is no use crying for spilled bounty," but when I did it helped me some. I thought of the hundreds who didn't get any bounty. I joined my regiment, and had a cavalry horse issued to me, and was assigned to a company. I went up to the captain of the company, whom I had known as a farmer before the war commenced, and told him I had come to help him put down the rebellion. I never saw a man so changed as he was. I thought he would ask me to bring my things into his tent, and stay with him, but he seemed to have forgotten that he had known me, when he worked on the farm. He was dressed up nicely, and I thought he put on style, and I could only think of him at home, with his overalls tucked in his boots, driving a yoke of oxen to plow a field. He seemed to feel that I had known him under unfavorable circumstances before the war, and acted as though he wanted to shun me. I had drawn an infantry knapsack, at Madison, before I left for the front, and had it full of things, besides a small trunk. The captain called a soldier and told him to find quarters for me, and I went out of his presence. At my quarters, which consisted of what was called a pup- tent, I found no conveniences, and it soon dawned on me that war was no picnic, as that lying recruiting officers had told me it was. I found that I had got to throw away my trunk and knapsack, and all the articles that I couldn't strap on a saddle, and when I asked for a mattress the men laughed at me. I had always slept on a mattress, or a feather bed, and when I was told that I would have to sleep on the ground, under that little tent, I felt hurt. I had known the colonel when he used to teach school at home, and I went to him and told him what kind of a way they were treating me, but he only laughed. He had two nice cots in his tent, and I told him I thought I ought to have a cot, too. He laughed some more. Finally I asked him who slept in his extra cot, and intimated that I had rather sleep in his tent than mine, but he sent me away, and said he would see what could be done. I laid on the ground that night, but I didn't sleep. If I ever get a pension it will be for rheumatism caught by sleeping on the ground. The rheumatism has not got hold of me yet, though twenty-two years have passed, but it may be lurking about my system, for all I know.I had never rode a horse, before enlisting. The only thing I had ever got straddle of was a stool in a country printing office, and when I was first ordered to saddle up my horse, I could not tell which way the saddle and bridle went, and I got a colored man to help me, for which I paid him some of the remains of my bounty. I hired him permanently, to take care of my horse, but I soon learned that each soldier had to take care of his own horse. That seemed pretty hard. I had been raised a pet, and had edited a newspaper, which had been one of the most outspoke